I was only fourteen when I got my first beating. And I mean a real beating, not just the one that gives you a black eye, but the kind that makes you wonder if you were wearing a red shirt when you left home this morning. The kind that needs stitches here and there and the kind that makes you look back and realize that it probably was not a very good idea to piss that bully off.

A skinny 5-footer with glasses that needed to be pushed up my nose every now and then (so Hiro Nakamura!), I was no match for my nemesis. He was large and fierce, although not very agile, but I learnt that it made no difference. A minute into the challenge, and I was lying on the sandpit which was the football field, dazed and bleeding while the bastard continued to kick me. At the stand-off, just before he threw the punch that floored me, I had believed I could take him. I had believed I could make him cry. I had believed I would emerge victorious. And I had believed I would be unhurt.

I had believed this because I was an expert at martial arts and hand-to-hand combat. True, I did not hold a belt of any color in any form of combat, nor had I attended a single day of training at Shotokan Karate Center, the neighborhood martial arts school (although I did once high-five the Sensei, who had become somewhat of a local celebrity), but I had at my disposal, a collection of certain martial arts movies which I regarded as my treasured training videos. I had spent countless hours rewinding and playing back the training sequences, so I could emulate them. My imaginary nemeses (plural, what?) had bled their way to their graves and I was ruthless in my elimination tactics.

In retrospect, however, and coming back to my bleeding body, these movies did nothing but prepare me for a bashing up. And I thought about this, as my mum pulled out her first-aid kit and dabbed some liquid-soaked gauze on my wounds. Almost 2 decades later now, I shall attempt to recollect the tarnished memories of these movies, which, all said and done, were rather brilliant pieces of film-making in their own right.

Blood Sport

I was only 11 when I first watched this, and the entire angle of it being the true story of Frank Dux was something I was ignorant to. I loved Bloodsport because it satisfied my martial arts fetish. A man goes to Hong Kong to participate in the Kumite, some underground, free-style combat tournament that takes place every five years. Frank trains hard with his master while Stan Bush’s “Fight to Survive” plays in the background. It’s no “Eye of the Tiger”, but the training montage was inspiring nonetheless. Dux’s combat style ranged from Karate, to Kung Fu, to Kickboxing and Tae Kwon Do, and he brushed away all opponents to reach the finals, where the reigning champion blinded him with burnt lime, but our hero who’s been trained to fight with all of his senses emerges victorious. Horrible production, mediocre acting and a front-runner in the “action-porn” genre. Legend.

The Prodigal Son

This one’s an action comedy from Hong Kong made in the early 80s. A period film about a rich man’s son who thinks he’s a martial arts expert, when in reality his father pays off opponents to lose to him, for fear that he may get hurt. Upon finding out, the son realizes that he is the butt of many jokes in his town and sets off to learn the arts of Kung Fu and Wing Chun with a trusted servant. The story is a lot better written than the previous one and takes many twists and turns before the final showdown where he has to fight a Manchu lord. The training sequences are pretty long but fun to watch, but the best thing about watching a kung fu flick from the 80s is the dubbed English audio that goes over the Chinese lip movements. And where exactly do they get those voice talents? They don’t sound like anyone who works in English language movies.

King of the Kickboxers

With terrible acting, and a “me too” storyline, KotK (as I like to call it), stands as the most watched movie in teens. The story is a little too similar to that of Kickboxer, but just done worse. A kid called Jake whose brother had been killed in Thailand grows up to become a New York cop. An opportunity arrives where he must travel to Thailand to expose a crime ring where actors are actually killed during filming to make it more realistic. Conveniently, his brother’s killer Khan is the main fighter in that ring. But wait, our man Jake isn’t good enough to face up to his sworn enemy and must train. Out comes the training montage where the trainer is a drunk hermit, trying to forget his past glory. Jake decides to hit two birds with one stone when he lands a role in one of these Thai films. He can convict the criminals, and get his sweet revenge from Khan. The final fight where he defeats Khan because he had practiced defense against Khan’s knockout moves (cheesy log training montage) is something I have never been able to erase from my mind.

Drunken Master

An early Jackie Chan film from Hong Kong, this one came out after Snake in the Eagle’s Shadow. A mischief-maker is punished by his father to be taught martial arts by a dreaded teacher, so he decides to run away from home. However, as luck may have it, he comes across a drunkard who turns out to be the master he had escaped from, and this Drunken Master forces the boy, Freddie Wong to train under him. Freddie escapes again and meets Yan, who has a killer move that’s never been defeated. Yan beats the shit out of him, so Freddie hurries back to his drunken master to finally start training. The master teaches him his secret style of Drunken Boxing which later Freddie evolves into his own style. meanwhile, Freddie’s dad is killed by Yan, so Freddie goes to challenge him, and armed with his own style of Drunken Boxing, defeats Yan and becomes the new Drunken Master.

The Karate Kid

“Wax on, wax off,” said Mr. Miyagi to Daniel-san, and he did. Karate Kid stands out from the rest because it gained mainstream popularity across the youth in the US and across the world. The story of a boy who gets trained by a Japanese neighbor in the arts of karate, and goes on to win the regional championships against Johnny of the Cobra Kai karate squad. The training montage with “You’re the Best” playing behind is legendary, and the shot of Daniel practicing the Crane Kick on the pier is imprinted in my mind (and on the poster on the left), and he uses that very technique to defeat Johnny after his leg has been severely injured. The sequels weren’t half as good as the original, and Karate Kid still holds a very special place for me, because it was the Crane Kick which I tried against my personal bully.